Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

There is a cruel irony in the exclusion of certain groups of people, whose incomes and employment have been hardest hit by the pandemic, from a scheme which is called the Covid restrictions support scheme. The threshold for this support is turnover being down by 25% to cover the ongoing costs which businesses have. I refer to insurance, fuel, maintenance and repayment costs. Since March, I have been highlighting two cohorts who have been the most impacted. Musicians have not seen their incomes impacted by 25%, or 30% or 40%, but by 80%, 90% or even 100%. If they do not have a premises, however, musicians are excluded from the CRSS. How are they supposed to pay insurance? How are they supposed to make repayments? How are they supposed to survive?

I refer to the anger expressed by musicians yesterday, 87% of whom were excluded from the award scheme provided by the Minister, Deputy Catherine Martin. That gives us an indication of the cruel injustice of this situation.

Most musicians do not get the music industry stimulus package, MISP, award. Most musicians do not get the Covid restrictions support scheme, CRSS. Yet they are the people who are among the hardest, if not the hardest, hit along with the crews - the sound engineers and the light engineers - who stand behind them. It is not fair. I appeal to the Minister to make this scheme available to them.

I will talk about the taxi drivers in my final contribution.

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